Have a wonderful break and happy holidays! :o)

Blog Period 26 Begins, Sort Of

The WHOLLY OPTIONAL new blogging period (the twenty-sixth one, covering Wednesday, December 6th, through pretty much forever) starts here.

This is the official separator post beginning the new period -- just add water.

MY problem with Unger that self righteous bigot.

In examples involving trolleys and tracks Unger perpetuates the hateful and offensive stereotype of the mustachioed villain who ties people to train tracks. It is plainly evident that Unger has a vendetta against bearded men. My guess is that Unger's altruism is a way to get back at Santa Claus (a bearded man) who did not get him the one toy above all others that he wanted for Christmas that year. If Unger couldn't have it, then no one else could either. So he became a philosopher to try to infect the world with his noxious doctrine, hoping to put Santa Claus, Coca-Cola and the toy companies out of business. If everyone lives a Spartan lifestyle and gives all their surplus wealth to UNICEF, CARE or Oxfam then they have no need for gifts or material comforts of any kind and then Santa will for the first time know what it is like to be unwanted and useless. A diabolical plot to be sure, but then we all know that Unger is the real villain . Don't worry Santa , I won't let the bad man hurt you.

So I guess it is pick on Unger day...

I also have a problem with Unger’s approach to this subject matter. He makes assumptions about the reader’s intuition, and more often than not I find myself disagreeing. Quite a few of us have had this reaction to his intuitions. I wonder if maybe we react differently because we are more acquainted with thinking about philosophy and ethics; maybe our minds, when thinking about cases like he has us do, instantly evaluate them rather than just intuitionally react to them. Or maybe we have, over time, changed our intuitions through study and discussion.

In the book Unger mentions how people can be psychologically inclined to react one way or another to a set of cases. He says how we often subconsciously want our reactions and intuitions about one case to match up with how we react to the other cases we have been presented. He says that he switches his cases around, he does not present them in the typical way, so he can get our real reactions to them. This sounds like a smart move, but I think that my intuitions would have told me the same thing either way. Also, my intuitions did not sync up with what he presented as the typical response. I am curious as to how he ascertains what the normal, common sense intuition is.

One of my problems I think is that I often think that both options are morally impermissible, as Tom called it a negativist. Especially in these harm cases, but even in the stealing cases, this puts me at odds with Unger. He would probably think me to be rather morally cold in some of these cases! But, overall, I often find him unconvincing and hard to read due to him making such assumptions. I think he would do better to be a little more sensitive to other views, but also, as Kelly said in class yesterday, a book can only be so long.

My problem with Unger...

I apologize in advance for this blog because I do not think that it is going to be arguing against Unger's theories as much as how he writes his book. I have been struggling to read this book thus far because Unger's style of writing bothers me in general. He has a way of leading the reader in a way that does not let anyone think for themself. In talking about a theory, he tends to mention that it is the correct way of thinking a number of times before he even discusses what the theory is. This bothered me from the start, but it became more of an issue for me in reading these two chapters for class today. I, like Kelly, had problems with how Unger saw Preservationist thinking in certain cases. It bothers me enough that Unger keeps telling me what I think when he's correct. However, when he spends pages talking about how I supposedly think and I do not agree with it, I find it nearly impossible to read. I agreed with Kelly in that no matter which case, the Heavy Skater or the the Switches and Skater, I felt that it is wrong to make the skater go in front of the trolley. Furthermore, I felt that even as a runner with 60 lives in danger and my foot as the only solution, someone is morally allowed to take my foot. Unger needs to find a case in which he does not play the number game and in which the same is at stake for all people involved. However, he does not provide such a case that causes Preservationists a large problem for the constraint against doing harm in this chapter. Furthermore, when he claims to find problems, he is not really speaking for my Preservationist intuitions.

Blog Period 25 Begins

The new blogging period (the twenty-fifth one, covering Monday and Tuesday, December 4th and 5th) starts here.

This is the official separator post beginning the new period -- best if used before January 2007.